gehringer_2

I have to guess there is something they are unhappy with Cameron about - IDK if he came to camp out of shape or is refusing some coaching they are pushing, but he seemed to get a pretty cold shoulder this Spring even compared to last.

So if Thompson vs Clark is any indication, the better description of the Supreme court should be the one of three camps, which I would call: The libs (Sotomayor, Kagan, soon to be Brown), the conservatives (The Chief, Kavanaugh and Barrett), and the crazies (Alito, Thomas, Gorsuch). This was a sort of a narrow, maybe call it minor, ruling but it shows how really off the wall the three crazies are. This was about the bar for admitting claims of malicious/wrongful prosecution. The question was whether the claimant needed a positive disposition to his case, such as acquittal, to pursue a case. The crazy wing all said yes, which is clearly ..well crazy... since that means that any prosecutor could make themselves immune from any level of mal-practice as long as after they had finished abusing a citizen in all kinds of manner that a prosecutor can, they dismissed or withdrew the case before a trial verdict. How is this even a serious question? 6-3 with all the 'conservatives' with the libs. And Buddha's supposition that Kavanaugh follows the Chief holds in this one. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/04/04/supreme-court-police-lawsuits/

and three of the 1st 5 starts in 2020 were Matt Boyd, Ivan Nova, and Roni Garcia

Oddly, Cabrera has never had much of a platoon split. Didn't have any last season - well all of 4pts OPS better against RHP. I guess when he is inside outing most pitches that must negate that breaking ball moving away against him. Also sort of funny that despite the tiny sample size, in his 25 ST ABs he is sitting almost exactly where he finished last season - a 700 OPS and about a 20% K rate.

correct!

it does seem odd that the fences are not deep and obviously there is no wind - but it consistently seem to have a low park factor. Do the baseballs get soggy in Tampa?

article about Meadow increase in FB rate and attendant decrease in BaBIP. If there is park that might persuade him to stop trying to hit the ball in the air as much it should be COPA. https://www.draysbay.com/2022/1/26/22877187/austin-meadows-has-been-trying-to-hit-the-catwalks

Does increase their flexibility at the deadline, though as a pending FA Grossman might not yield much unless he is really tearing it up. Well, we can hope.

And how unlike Al to not betray even an inkling something was up on when they asked him about Conforto.

If I read it correctly Grossman is only signed through this season? And is 33. With Meadows they won't have to bat Reyes or Haase against tough RHP. Willi Castro probably not the happiest guy in the camp tonight.....

I'll tell you for nothing that to me this is a difference between this regime and Mike Ilitch/DD years. Yes those guys brought in some great players and we won our share of games but there was seldom any sense of a vision of a team of parts that went together. This is a move -- aside from considerations of some absolute value comparison between the players -- works well in terms of moving a player that didn't appear to have a place for one that does.

I like it. I liked Isaac but to be honest he looks like a high floor low ceiling guy and the truth is that the Tiger system is deep in upcoming IFs likely to eclipse him, while we are pretty thin in the OF esp from the left hand batters box. Meadows was 4 WAR in '19, 2 WAR in 21 and is entering his prime power years. I can't see Paredes contributing that to the Tiger org over the next 2 or 3 years.

The other aspect which probably isn't stressed enough is how much Russian doctrine in Syria/Chechnya/Azerbejian etc was able to depend on a level initiative achievable because their opponents didn't have much tactical intelligence capability against them. The Ukrainians apparently are being supplied by the West with the kind of tactical intelligence on Russian maneuver that denies them any kind of battlefield initiative advantage.

the level of support from Europe and the US is certainly a key determinant and what it will be is largely still unknown. It's not hard to imagine the US/Euros pulling back from the possibility of Ukraine actually dealing the Russians an outright territorial defeat -despite what is turning into a non-zero possibility they could.

I think we underestimate the level of understanding in the Russian public. Most Russians have lived most of their lives under a repressive propagandist regime. The compartmentalization of what is 'understood' in public vs what is understood 'around the kitchen table' as they say, is complete. I think the bigger problem is not that the Russian public doesn't understand enough about the fact the what the regime says is FOS - if nothing else the disappearance of virtually all independent media is a clue that doesn't take long to lead one to the conclusion that something pretty big is being hidden - plus the shear volume of one on one family and business communication from Russia to Ukraine makes it impossible for reality not to seep in(out?). I think the bigger problem is that the public political culture has been pretty much ground into submission by literally a thousand years of this. They lack less the knowledge that could lead to action than a level of political hope that anything they do can make a difference -- or is worth risk of bringing the wrath of state down upon them.

Hmmm... How much dead money would it be to release Cabrera out at the end of this season?.... .....(runs out of fingers and toes....) a lot.

was 2005 the first 'one and done' year?

I'll live with 75 in 5 for young FB pitcher. Sure he should try to get guys out quicker, but it can't become more important that getting them out at all. You don't want to ruin a guy who can give you a solid 6 trying too hard to turn him into someone who gives you 7.

3" snow flakes falling in A^2 right now. Crazy.

yeah, I think the bottom line is much simpler: Putin loses this war convincingly, Putin is out in the Kremlin in relatively short order. Maybe not immediately, but the gears will have started to turn in an inexorable fashion. I do believe that is the one dynamic which is probably reliable. Losing wars is pretty universally a death knell for a fascist dictatorship. That is really all that is of primary importance - which is why the West cannot back off on the hard military support until the Ukrainians have insured this is an unambiguous defeat.

didn't miss on a hanging breaking ball. Nice Tork with a great AB on his HR. Fouled off a bunch of pitches then got out ahead of a pitch a high and in out of the K zone. Fulmer's FB still on the low side of 92.....😢 Victor takes a walk on a close pitch and then hits the ball in the air sufficiently to get it over the fence. I hope he's not going to leave this all in ST.

Of course think how much stronger our position on this would be if we had put Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, John Yoo and Jay Bybee in jail ourselves after Abu Ghraib

unfortunately, if that were true, Yzerman probably would not be the last to see it and Blash would already be gone. Well who knows, maybe he is already dead man walking....

Hope so. Lots of arm talent there.

well, FU politics is as much a symptom of the general coarsening of US culture. Not sure how you separate it. while there is value in that, I still think it's overall a factor that leads to political passivity. "I've had my laugh, now I'v done my politics." It's another thing that comes at you. Of course the same is true more globally in the fact that media has moved so totally into the video/visual realm in the last 70 yrs. I think that whole shift has been a passivating influence. You don't engage with with the talking head - other than maybe emotionally, which is probably worse than not at all. Heck - the kind of mental discipline that hanging out here and thinking through an attempt at an intelligent conversation is more useful intellectual exercise IMV than 100 hr of watching video.